


you're my heart

by patriciaselina



Category: Free!
Genre: Angst, Drama, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Future Fic, Haru Haru AU, Heavy Angst, Illnesses, Injury, M/M, Not Happy, terminal illness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-23
Updated: 2014-10-23
Packaged: 2018-02-22 07:07:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2499047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/patriciaselina/pseuds/patriciaselina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(...say goodbye.)</p><p>Sousuke Yamazaki finally thinks of something for their now-eight-year-old childhood promise. It's...not quite what Rin expected.</p><p>(Haru Haru AU, from paradigmation and natsui's tweets. My apologies.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you're my heart

**Author's Note:**

> [Because I have no regrets from loving you, so only take the good memories.](http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MzCbEdtNbJ0)
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> Wattpad link coming soon. Probably after I stop crying.
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> UPDATE: [Wattpad link.](http://w.tt/1wm6Cbz)

"It’ll be all right in the end" is a lie he keeps telling himself.  
Just because he says this a lot, though, doesn’t mean it’s the truth.

==

It’s a normal morning, on a normal day, in a normal city. Everything’s all fine and dandy. Rin’s favorite cherry blossoms are blooming, their petals swaying in the kind of cold, crisp breeze he likes. He’s about to grab a cup of coffee and say, yup, this day can’t get any more perfect, until he turns the corner and sees.  
Well.  
Guess he’s not the only one with a hankering for coffee today. Rin sees a flash of familiar dark hair and a pair of bright teal eyes he’d recognize anywhere, and, beside him, a smaller redhead with an aura of sunshine happiness, his lower lip jutting out as a reaction to something Sousuke might’ve said. It’s Momo, he recalls vaguely, now grinning at his luck of seeing two - take that, two! - of his high school friends in one sitting. And he’s about to open his mouth and call for them, his sister’s former awkward suitor, and his always-and-forever best friend, the man he had been waiting for all this time -  
Only for his blood to run cold when Sousuke leans down, plants a kiss on Momo’s sunshine-flushed cheek.  
Rin doesn’t even know what he’s doing. All he knows is that one minute he’s watching the scene unfold with his heart slipping through his fingertips, vaguely hearing the splintering crash as it kisses the ground, and the next minute his hands are at Momo’s shoulders, shoving him aside, shoving the world aside, making way for everything but Sousuke’s jacket in his fists and Sousuke’s face in his eyes as he says, voice cracking,  
“How dare you.”  
And Sousuke smiles, actually goddamned smiles, as if Rin hadn’t just lost his heart and his breath and everything worth living for in a span of a few measly seconds, and says, calmly:  
“Good morning to you too, Rin.”

==

Two days ago. Rin had just come home from Australia.  
Before that, though. There is a thing you should remember the most, for it is the thing Rin remembers the most, even after all these long years. When Rin had said that he’ll wait for Sousuke no matter what with those damning tears in his eyes, and Sousuke said he would ‘think about it’ (which was Sousuke-speak for “eventually, yes”), Sousuke had left him with worried eyes and a press of his lips to Rin’s own.  
“Don’t cry, Rin.” Sousuke had said, pressing soft feather-light kisses to Rin’s brow as the other man clung to him, shoulders shaking with unshed tears. “It’ll be all right in the end.”  
And the thing is - the most important thing is - Rin had believed him. Hook, line, sinker, hell, the entire fishing boat. So after a day of careless fun with vending machines and crane games and pointless throwdowns (that Rin won every time, as per usual, Sousuke really still did suck at this), when Sousuke’s eyes had dimmed and he said he’d wanted to talk, in private, Rin had not been worried at all.  
Not even when Sousuke had said, his voice a dull lifeless monotone, “Rin, I wanna use that promise from eight years ago.”  
Because Rin knows he’ll spring this up on him eventually. Even Haru, that dead fish, had picked up on it some three years ago - after the fifteenth phone call, “Oh, why don’t you two just shut up and get married already,” as if Rin didn’t use that line on Haruka and Makoto too - and Rin wants to slap himself for not picking up on it earlier. Would’ve saved Sousuke a heck of a lot of grief if he did.  
Point is if Sousuke wishes for his kiss Rin’s ten steps ahead of him, he’ll give Sousuke himself. Bad teeth and all. He’s spent three years working off the memory of a kiss, a series of warm smiles off a grainy webcam, and a stuttering heartbeat - call him a sugar-spun romantic, Rin doesn’t give a damn, he knows they’re meant to be. So he’s smiling, mentally chiding himself for not taking a breathmint today, and for the love of God why did he have to get the garlic pizza for lunch?  
Rin smiles at Sousuke, anticipating, and keeps smiling, up until the very last second, until Sousuke says, eyes looking straight into Rin’s godforsaken soul -  
“Rin. Don’t wait for me anymore.”  
Time doesn’t stop.  
The world doesn’t shift on its axis.  
Nothing changes about this mindless, ordinary day.  
But it feels as if Rin’s heart had been hollowed out with a rusty spoon anyway, as if a black hole swallowed him up and all there was left for him to do was scream at nothingness. Why is this happening. No. Why, why -  
“- why?”  
“You said you’d do anything I wanted, yeah? So there it is. I think it’s kinda easy for you to do. No swim races or anything.”  
There might have been a sufficient amount of mockery in that last sentence, but even if there were as things are Rin’s heart is way too hollow to care about it. “But you said - you promised -“  
“I didn’t promise you anything, Rin. I just said I’ll think about it.”  
“I wasn’t talking about that,” Rin says, voice cracking with something that might’ve been desperation, as he tilts his head up, closes his eyes, and pulls his head forward. “I was talking about this.”  
(Don’t cry, Rin. It’ll be all right in the end.)  
Sousuke takes him by the shoulders, however, and pulls him back. Rin opens his eyes, gingerly, and sees Sousuke looking down at him with his lips thinned into a grim line.  
“Reminds me. About that.”  
“About what?”  
“No, Rin, we can’t.”  
“I don’t understand.”  
“…you’re swimming superstar Rin Matsuoka, for crying out loud…I don’t want to be a burden to you.”  
“You’ll never be a burden to me, Sousuke.” Rin says, and means it. With their luck it’s more like the other way around.  
“Yeah, but then again you also said that you’d never think of quitting without telling me first, and look what that got you in.” At the look on Rin’s face, Sousuke laughs, low and hollow and not at all sincere. “Hypocrite, I know. But I was just following your example.”  
“We’re still friends, though, right?” Rin says, voice shaking, with guilt or anger or heartbreak, he doesn’t know which. “Sousuke?”  
Sousuke leaves him then, like he did three years ago, saying “I’ll think about it.”  
But he doesn’t kiss him, doesn’t touch him, doesn’t even walk him home, and for this alone, as soon as he got home, Rin shoved all his stuff off his table, and screamed until he was hoarse.

==

Another day, another sighting.  
“…Rin-senpai.” Momo mumbles. Obviously Rin’s presence isn’t wanted here. “Nice to see you…?”  
They had been sharing a banana split like shoujo manga teenagers - did Sousuke even like sweets? - and had been laughing over…something…until Rin had come with his fists at his sides and his heart dragging behind him on the floor.  
“Sousuke. I need to talk to you.”  
“Go ahead,” Sousuke says, airily, breezily, swiping a hint of cream off Momo’s cheek as if he hadn’t tread on Rin’s broken heart just yesterday, as if every “love you, Rin” he ever said over three years of Skype calls had never been spoken. “What’s up?”  
“I need to talk to you, Sousuke.” A meaningful glare Momo’s direction. Which stung - Rin loved the boy like his own brother. If only he wasn’t breaking Rin’s heart. “Alone.”  
“If you’ve got anything to say, then say it to both of us.” Sousuke huffs, his shoulders squared, eyebrows furrowed. How long had it been since it was Rin who’d been under Sousuke’s protection? He misses it now.  
“Sousuke-senpai, don’t worry ‘bout it, I could just leave -“  
“No, Momo. Let me.” Sousuke says, oh-so-fondly, another stolen peck at Momo’s cheek, and now all Rin can see is red. “And we’re kinda in a hurry, we’ve got tickets for this afternoon, so have at it already.”  
It’s the tone - as if Rin was inconsequential, unwanted, not worth a second glance - that makes Rin snap.  
People move out of the way as Rin takes Sousuke by the shoulders - so it hurts, he doesn’t care, sure as hell would be no match for his broken heart - and gets up in his face like yesterday, but unlike yesterday he grabs Sousuke’s nape and kisses him, with all the rage and pain and desperation he ever had, and it’s only when their breaths come in pants that Rin pulls Sousuke away, not at all gently, and says,  
“Is this it?” After all that time spent talking about sleepovers and future dates and living together, after every time they’d slipped, said their feelings oncam, and meant it? “Is this how it is, Sousuke? What about your promise? What about everything we talked about? If there’s you and Momo - then what about us?  
“What about us, Sousuke?”  
“Didn’t we end that promise two days ago? Jesus, Rin, let me go!” Sousuke screams, and Rin does, numbly watching as Momo fusses over Sousuke’s crumpled clothes, herding him away. But not before Sousuke turns around and says,  
“There was never an us, Rin.”

==

Rin punches the bathroom mirror and watches his blood as it flows down the shattered pieces, down to his tiled countertop, red against dull white. It’d be beautiful, if someone were morbid enough to think so.  
The broken glass claws into the thin stretches of skin between his knuckles, digging in deeper, and it should hurt, it really should hurt, but -  
(There was never an us, Rin.)  
Nothing would ever hurt more than remembering the look on Sousuke’s face when he might as well could have said, Rin, I was never in love with you.

==

He was going to propose to him.  
He was going to finish college, and then propose. Maybe they’d live together and he’d get a job, save up, and then, when he had made a name for himself in…whatever he could’ve been, when he had proven himself a worthy husband, they were going to get married.  
But then, things happened. Checkups and medication and tears and countdowns.  
He can’t propose to him. Can’t even love him.  
How could he give him his heart, when his heart was going to stop beating soon?

==

"Senpai, are you sure about this?"  
“Yeah, of course I am. You guys know the plan, right?”  
“But senpai…don’t you think Rin-senpai deserves to know?”  
“Rin deserves to be happy,” And cherished, and protected, and loved by someone who can at least spend the rest of his life with him. “So we’re going with the plan.”  
“Senpai…”  
“Shh, Momo, it’s fine, you did well. Rin knows it’s all my fault anyway. Now go check on Ai, get some food in you, you’d think you guys were the ones dying.”  
“Senpai…”  
“Too soon?”  
It will never be anything but too soon, not when he believed his both his senpai would always live forever. Together. “…I’ll get you some soda for when you get back.”  
“Yeah, thanks, Momo.”  
They both know he’ll never come back.

=

Momo sees Ai, slumped on the floor, folding into himself, his shoulders shaking with tears, his phone hanging lifelessly from its strap, tangled up in his fingers. He approaches his senpai, puts a hand on his shoulder.  
“I think we really should tell Rin-senpai.”  
“…’y did.”  
“Ai-senpai?”  
“I said, I already -“  
Ai’s words are cut off by the glass door suddenly opening and slamming shut, by a flash of red hair, pale skin, plaid shirt and tank top, and -  
Tears.  
So many tears.  
“Please tell me you’re joking, Ai,” Rin says, looking down at his two kouhais, huddled up against each other on the floor. There’s a manic grin on his teary-eyed face, and his hands are still shaking. “Please tell me it’s not real.”  
Ai sobs, once, and doesn’t say anything.  
“And Momo, you rascal!” He goes on, grinning a weak imitation of his cheery teasing grin, “You don’t have to go to these lengths to get me to approve of you guys, yanno. I was just being jealous for no reason.” Yeah right, but he’d rather this be the reality, than the words Ai had given him over the phone. “Now where’s Sousuke? Damn that guy, I’d have to admit, for a joke, this is really top-notch, and here I am thinking that guy’s still hopeless with detailed stuff -“  
“It’s not a joke, Rin-senpai,” Momo says, voice wavering as Ai clings to him, sobbing himself hoarse. “This is as real as it can get.”  
“No,” Rin says, his eyes wide, his lips trembling, his heart hollow. “No, it can’t be. Ai?”  
“I-II’d never lie to you, senpai. I don’t think I ever could.” Hence why Sousuke and Momo had let him out of the loop until the very end of their plan. Hence why it only took a full hour from their confession for him to dial Rin’s number and say: Sousuke-senpai’s dying, and he loves you.  
“Both of them true, then?”  
“Both of them,” Air murmurs, shrinking under the hopelessness of Rin’s gaze. “Sousuke-senpai is dying. And he does love you.”  
“No, no, no…Momo?”  
“When he said ‘there was never an us’ he didn’t mean you and him, Rin-senpai. He meant him and me. There was never an us.” There was only you, shining so radiantly, that whenever Sousuke-senpai would gaze upon you, his eyes would hurt. “As far as he’s concerned, it was always going to be you.  
Rin bites down, hard, on his lower lip, breaking the skin, blood flowing down like the blood from his knuckles and the tears in his eyes and all sense of meaning in his life, because the man he loves - the man he loves who loves him back - is dying. And there’s nothing he could do to stop it.  
He finds himself banging on the surgery room doors anyway, as if that would help anything.  
“SOUSUKE!!” He screams, louder than he ever had before, louder than when he had when he lost to Haru, when he lost his way. Just as loud as when he heard of his father’s death. He’s about to scream some more, but the sobbing left him hoarse, so he has to settle for murmuring against the closed doors. “No, Sousuke, stop this. You can’t do this. I love you, you brat, so don’t do this. Don’t leave me, Sousuke. I love you, I love you. Don’t leave me, please…”

==

Sousuke knows that he told Rin to stop waiting for him, but he knows with every fiber of his bones that if there’s one thing Rin isn’t good at, it’s stopping.  
Hence the faint pounding sounds he can only vaguely hear from the other side of the room. Murmured words, almost like some kind of prayer. A prayer for him.  
(Don’t leave me, Sousuke, I love you.)  
Maybe it’s just his imagination. But still, it’s a pleasant thought to die to - the thought of loving for so long, and being loved back.  
I love you, Rin, and I’m so sorry.

==

Rin vaguely remembers someone in white giving him a small drawstring bag.  
The patient left this in his room, it was probably for you, they said, taking note of the fact that there are three sobbing men in the hallway but only one of them - red hair, vaguely familiar, haphazard clothing, pale face, caked with blood and tears - is looking at the closed doors as if he’d been cheated out of something big. Like a million dollars or world peace or a happily ever after. The nurse doesn’t even know if the personal effects would make the man feel better or worse.  
Rin shakes the bag’s contents onto his palms. What he sees makes his heart go numb and his already-broken composure shatter.  
Two silver bands. Simple, unobtrusive, save for a little diamond embedded in the middle. Engraving: SY+RM. I will…  
God, Rin can’t even get through that sentence without falling apart. And Sousuke, Sousuke who didn’t even like English all that well, Sousuke was the one who chose to put this in English, just because Rin had once randomly said he liked English words on his jewelry?  
I will love you forever.  
“Sousuke…Sousuke, I love you. Please don’t leave me.”

==

He leaves anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> On a mostly unrelated note, happy anniversary to my Retrouvaille AU! That fic was actually supposed to have an ending more like this one...now we know why it didn't. It hurts, guys. It really does.
> 
> Hope you liked it...somehow. If anyone needs me I'll be here, you know, still crying.


End file.
